Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know
by Godspeed Revolution
Summary: A sorceress needs Balthazar's help destroying an evil artifact. Pre-movie fun in the world of magic and sorcerers. Chapter 4: Balthazar is drunk and entertaining guests.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Sorcerer's Apprentice is the property of Walt Disney Pictures, etc.

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><p>Opelousas, Louisiana, 12:18 PM<p>

The blast of blue-hot energy shot through the air, cutting wakes visible amidst the humidity, pulsing with a cracking boom as it hit the tree only inches from Ursula's head. Righting herself from her prone position on the soggy ground, she swung her quarterstaff in a sharp half-turn, drawing power from the arc and sending a pulse of fiery red towards the opposing sorceress. Lisette neatly dispersed it with a wave of her fist. She'd always been quick on her feet.

Lisette didn't pause but drew up more plasma bolts in a complicated flourish of hands. Probably a gesture of her own invention, Ursula thought as she considered necessary counter measures. The Crovian Defense seemed best, and she tilted her staff downwards, recalling the precise formation of energy and movement required. It had been a while since she'd done this one, but assuming it worked…

The blast soared towards her almost faster than she could see, but Ursula remembered the old form in her gut and let her instincts take control. With a whack, she shot out at the ball of energy like a cricketer, feeling the shockwaves radiate up her staff and absorbing them back into her body through her hands. Lisette's plasma bolt hurtled towards its maker with the same intense speed, cutting gusts through the fog of the bayou. From her vantage point twenty feet away, Ursula could see Lisette form her mouth into a tiny gasp, eyes going just a little wide as the lightning-like ball struck her directly in the chest.

The effect was instantaneous. Lisette _exploded_ into a blast of fiery light like a grenade going off, rippling concussions through the air so hard Ursula felt her eardrums compress and threaten to pop. She made a hopeless attempt to grab hold of a tree branch, but the blast hit her a moment later and she went soaring backwards. It sent her ten feet distant, flat on her back in six inches of muddy, brackish water, but, thankfully, alive. Unlike Lisette. Ursula lay for a second completely still, waiting for the ringing in her ears to stop and the sweeping, dizzy feeling to leave her head, before pushing herself into a sitting position and observing the scene.

A large gaping hole in the grass and earth stood where Lisette had previously been, the fog slowly creeping back from the vacuum left by the blast. Not a trace of her nemesis remained. Yes, the Crovian Defense had _definitely_ been a wise choice.

Ursula stuck her staff into the wet earth to pull herself upright, groaning at the pain in her back. She pushed her mud-matted red hair out of her face and tried to shake a bit of water off her clothes. It was a fairly useless enterprise. Hobbling slightly from one of Lisette's previous attacks, she began trudging through the swampy grass, poking at a root here and there with her quarterstaff. Finally, she came to the spot. She picked up a wet and slimy object, covered in foul smelling mud and completely unrecognizable as the sinister object she knew it was. She sent a tiny shot of magic through her hand and shook off most of the mud. Underneath, it had the vague shape of a doll, although a horrible twisted and mutilated one, apparently made of rags and twigs.

She sighed inwardly. So much destruction for such a little thing. Feeling slimy and dirty with it in her hand, although that may have just been her filthy clothes, she slogged to the bank and found the lead box. She placed the doll inside, glad to no longer be touching it, and sealed the box with a tap of her finger.

The box was heavy in her hands. She leaned her quarterstaff against her shoulder and stared down at it. "To New York we go," she said to herself, and with a sinking feeling in her stomach, she and the box left the swamp.

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><p>AN: Will there be more? Probably, as I had fun writing this for the first time in a long while, but most definitely if you tell me you want more.


	2. Magic 8 Ball

Disclaimer: Characters and concepts property of Walt Disney Pictures, etc.

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><p>ARCANA CABANA, NEW YORK CITY, 4:39 PM<p>

Balthazar Blake was well on his way to being completely drunk, and he planned to get there within an hour, at the latest. His feet were planted on the corner of his cluttered desk, his arms sprawled over the cracked leather of an armchair, his hands tightly around a dusty bottle of something amber colored and vile tasting. A few weak rays of sunlight struck his face, dying as the sun sank below the artificial horizon of the buildings crowding his own little emporium. He hit the tumbler on his desk, scuffing a mark into the ancient oak (not the first), and poured himself another.

Gritting his teeth, he gulped it down and made a face. The bottle was half gone and he could still taste it. Better pick up the pace, then.

Things, to put it mildly, had not been going well. The Seer in Calcutta had told him thirty seven years ago that he would "find his destiny in New York". That had been a lucky break. Thirteen hundred years of searching, and he finally had some idea where to be looking. Balthazar had been to every continent on the planet dozens of times, even Antarctica, looking for Merlin's heir, and until he met that skinny old woman in the slums of India, he'd had no indication of _where_ he should be looking. But that was thirty seven years ago. Now, sitting here in his dusty shop for going on three decades, he had to wonder if the old woman might have been a fraud after all. Even if Darius had sworn she was right almost all the time. Besides, what did "find his destiny" even mean? Could be he was going to win the lottery, or finally uncover the perfect pair of shoes that didn't pinch his toes or cause counter-productive conducive currents, or—

Or find a way to free _her_.

The sunlight had faded away now, and Balthazar's vision was beginning to go just a tiny bit fuzzy. He waved a hand through the air and a half dozen candles sputtered into flames, providing some illumination. He groped around the surface of his desk, pushing aside piles of papers and parchments and bits of old bones until he found it: the Magic 8 Ball.

He'd acquired it from a chap in New Mexico during Prohibition, who'd said it never lied but only told the truth in the direst of circumstances. Balthazar was still trying to figure that one out. He held the small black enameled ball, the white parts yellowed from age, smoothing it in his fingers until it gleamed with an almost supernatural glow. He downed another shot and stared at it.

"Is the Prime Merlinean here?"

The black figure 8 briefly squirmed, then melted and rearranged itself into a fluid script:

_You ask this one too much._

Balthazar bit back the urge to shake the stupid thing. He tried again, vaguely aware of his slight but noticeable slur, "Is the Prime Merlinean in New York City?"

_Ask again later._

"How much later? I've been waiting for centuries!"

The Magic 8 Ball did not reply.

"Am I going to find the person I seek?"

_You seek much. Seekers will be finders._

"When?"

_Yes or no questions only, please._

Tiny sparks flickered in the air around him, his own frustration taking physical form. He stared at the glassy ball, the black script now faded into the familiar 8.

"Will I ever see her again?" he whispered.

_The future is cloudy._ _Try again when you're sober._

Balthazar chucked the Magic 8 Ball across the room with an ensorcelled pitch that sent it hurtling through a pane of glass to land somewhere in the Arcana Cabana room proper. He reached for the dusty bottle, watched it slip from his fumbling fingers and smash on the ground an instant later. He could feel the Grimhold, buried within the brick walls, pulsing like a heartbeat, matched up with his own, like it'd been since the day he'd locked her up in it.

Balthazar Blake closed his eyes and tried to forget everything.

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><p>AN: Next up, Balthazar and Ursula meet.


	3. Magic Shades

Disclaimer: Movie copyright Walt Disney Pictures.

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><p>SIX AND A HALF BLOCKS FROM ARCANA CABANA, SOMETIME AFTER 6 PM<p>

There was a crease running directly through 22nd and Anderson Streets and traveling the entire length of the map, and this bothered Ursula quite a bit. She was under the impression that Balthazar Blake's renowned curiosity shop was somewhere in that vicinity, but how would she ever know if the lines in the map were folded into oblivion?

Standing on the street corner and peering futilely at the cumbersome map, she felt a crick forming in her neck and tried to decipher her spellwork. Locating spells, despite her master's continual efforts, were not her strong suit. The Pin Point Pinpoint Spell, which she'd only used twice before, was certainly not helping her now. It required only a map of the general location and the name of the sought after person, which was about all the information she'd been able to gather about the owner of Arcana Cabana. Even Dragomir, who knew practically ever sorcerer on the continent (and probably the world) hadn't been able to tell her more than that he was holed up somewhere in New York.

The spell was supposed to indicate the person's location with a pinhole on the map, but search as she might, she couldn't find _any_. Balthazar Blake wasn't listed in the phone book and had no known contacts in the city who might help her. But she couldn't leave now after coming all this way. There was too much at stake.

Absorbed in the map, she jumped when someone tapped her on the shoulder. "Uh, excuse me? You looking for a taxi?"

She turned to see a youngish man in a baseball cap bearing the name of some local team (she could never get them straight). He stood on the sidewalk and held open the door of a yellow cab, indicating the inside.

Ursula crumpled the map into a wad and stuffed it into her cavernous leather bag. "You know these streets? You've seen them all before?" she asked, an idea forming in her mind.

"Yeah, I guess so. I can take ya where you're going," he said, although as he gave her a quick up-and-down, he looked as though he might be reconsidering his offer. This might be New York City, but even here, trench coats in June and quarterstaffs were a little weird.

She stood silent for a moment, twisting her beetle ring around her finger, trying to remember the formula for the enchantment. It was a tricky one, but she thought she could work it. Nodding, she looked up and realized the cab driver was staring at her with bug eyes. Oh. She'd been balancing her quarterstaff straight up in the air, a maneuver necessary in the swamplands where weapons couldn't be set down, and one that had become subconscious. She grabbed it hurriedly and jumped into the open cab. The taxi driver, with a glance down the street as though he hoped he could find a way out of this, reluctantly followed.

"Just start driving, I'll tell you where," Ursula said from the backseat. She calmed her mind, remembered the method, and drew together her energy. "Could I borrow your sunglasses for a moment?" she asked.

The cab driver's eyes darted to her through the rearview mirror. "Huh?"

"Just for a second. I'll give them back. Undamaged. Almost certainly."

After a few more seconds of startled eye movements, the driver complied. Ursula slipped the tinted glasses over her eyes and unleashed the carefully wrought force. Suddenly, the gloomy streets seen through the darkened cab windows were lit up in a fluorescent display of colors and lights, humming and bouncing through the frames. This was magic, its visible trails, the tiny pulses of everyday people and their electromagnetic currents of thoughts and emotions, and among it, the bold flourishes of real, focused magic, the kind that only came from a practiced sorcerer. Yes, there was more around here than usual, something that indicated the presence of a very powerful sorcerer who had been expounding a lot of magic for a long time.

"Left up here," Ursula called, pointing down a street where several streaming trails of green and orange vibrated. The driver jerked the cab in the right direction, Ursula scanning the jumbled colors for some kind of pattern.

"That little street, there." They were definitely moving along the current, heading for some point close by…

"Right, here." The cab swung, the driver muttering something unhappy sounding.

"Major old-timer…" Ursula murmured, beginning to realize just how much power this curiosity shop must contain.

The lights grew denser, and after a couple more turns, the air was thick with them. The driver was becoming steadily annoyed, but Ursula saw the final convergence of a great mass of lights up ahead, all centered around and flowing to and from a skinny, slightly crooked looking, dark building.

"That's it. Stop the car."

The driver was glad to comply. Ursula gave the world of visible magic one last long look and let the spell go. The world faded to its usual dull colors and she handed the driver back his glasses.

"Thank you, my good man. Your eyes have served me well."

Said eyes were bugged out again in the mirror, but Ursula didn't notice. She opened the door and moved to get out.

The driver cleared his throat and made a choking sound. "Hey wait! You gotta pay! $8.25!"

"Oh, right. Money." It had been a while since Ursula had been among civilians for any length of time. She fished in her coat pocket and turned up a five dollar bill. "Oh dear." Rummaging in her leather bag produced a crusty brown circle of metal rather larger than an average coin. "Would you take a Spanish doubloon? It's not cursed anymore."

"Fine, whatever! Just get out!" the driver shouted.

As the cab screeched away, Ursula contemplated the building before her. Sealed in the lead box inside her bag, she could still feel the poppet of rags and twigs, something dirty and ugly pressing against her sense of magic. She hoped like she hadn't for a long time that the sorcerer in Arcana Cabana would know how to help her.

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><p>AN: Okay, I lied. They don't meet this chapter, but they will the next one. Reymonkey, the story takes place in 1999 and there are no specific dates because sorcerers are weirdos who don't pay attention to that kind of thing.


	4. Illusions

THE BACK ROOM OF ARCANA CABANA, 6: 47 PM

Balthazar Blake hadn't dreamt for two hundred years and he didn't miss it. It had taken much longer than that to learn to control all the thoughts and memories and feelings he'd stored up over a thousand years. In his waking moments, he could contain it all. He could push away the warm, sweet memories that made him sick to think of now, and forget the long, long years he had seen.

Asleep, it was a different matter.

So two hundred years ago he'd worked a little sorcery on one of those (at the time) new-fangled mesmerists and gotten the dreams taken away, magicked clear out of his head. In a lot of ways, this was much better.

But sometimes, he missed it. He missed seeing her. Even though it hurt.

The current drunken slumber he was now indulging in was, as usual, dreamless. No memories of wars fought long ago resurfaced, and no fallen comrades disturbed his sleep. It was simply blissful blankness.

Until the bells on the shop room jangled into life.

Balthazar jumped from his worn leather armchair, standing up so fast the blood rushed from his head and sent a wave of dizziness over him. The small silent alarm on his desk was flashing rapidly, indicating a sorcerer had just stepped into his shop. The alarm, disguised as a rather ugly ceramic paperweight, had been in place for a dozen years or so, his own invention after the unfortunate incident with Enoch O'Hara. These days, it was much preferable to be aware when possibly deadly magical powers were crossing your threshold.

With a few deft movements, Balthazar quickly called the wards into place that would protect the building and, hopefully, deal with any malefactors. He listened for several tense moments, then conjured a cloaking spell for a little reconnoitering.

Silently, Balthazar, now hidden under the cloaking spell, stepped into the main room. Anyone looking around wouldn't notice his existence at all, although if they knew exactly where to look and stared hard enough they might see a vague misty figure in his general shape and size. The shop itself, however, was under an even more dramatic illusion. The curiosities ancient and modern that normally filled the shop were gone, replaced with a few scattered, broken crates, piles of dust over everything, and gauzy strings of cobwebs heavy with filth. The lights were extinguished, only a few sparse rays from the dying sun creeping through the storefront windows, the gloom heightening the feeling of a building decrepit for decades.

Just entering the shop, Balthazar saw through the cloaking spell, was a young woman who examined the room with perplexity. He could see by her appearance she was not a civilian, unless they were all wearing leather dusters and carrying quarterstaffs these days. She had a stock of somewhat matted dark red hair and was carrying a large bag in one hand. He reached out with a tiny bit of magic, trying to get a sense of her extra-natural abilities. Instantly, he realized that was a mistake.

She whirred around in his direction, staring hard. "Who's there?"

Balthazar crept farther into the shadows, waiting to see what she would do.

She pointed the staff at one of the crates, Balthazar noting an unusual yellow ring on her right hand glowing as she did so, and the crate burst into pieces, dust scattering everywhere. The illusion held however, and she seemed no closer to the truth.

"I know somebody's in here," she said, her voice rather deep, eyes sweeping the room. An unfortunate side effect of the cloaking spell Balthazar was under was limited visual acuity, so he could not be exactly sure if she was looking at him. He was also still slightly drunk, although not as badly as a few hours ago. Not exactly in peak form for a showdown…

Getting no reply, she swung the staff in a funny little gesture, and the room rumbled with a deep reverberation, dust falling from rafters, and for just a moment, the true scene flickered into view. Instantly the illusion was back in place, but the damage was done.

A triumphant smirk on her face, she began drawing her hands in the spell that would destroy the illusion for good. Balthazar gave it one last try.

"WHO DARES DISTURB MY SLUMBER?" he called out in a magically magnified voice, the sound vibrating through the bricks and foundation until it sounded like a truly monstrous beast.

He was very pleased to see her jump and drop the bag, although she had the sense to keep hold of the quarterstaff.

"Who are you?" she shouted back somewhere towards the ceiling, sounding more than a little frightened.

"YOU INVADE MY HOME AND HAVE THE NERVE TO QUESTION _ME_? WHO ARE_ YOU?_"

"I asked first," she muttered, and suddenly whipped the staff directly towards him, sending a red and sizzling plasma bolt through the air.

If Balthazar had not been slightly intoxicated and in full control of his ocular abilities, he could have certainly blocked the bolt. As it was, it hit him squarely in the chest and sent him slamming into the wall.

The dilapidated façade sputtered out of sight and was replaced by the familiar, cluttered room full of sinister and morbid objects of magic. The lights flickered back into life, and his cloaking spell destroyed by the blast, a sore and dusty Balthazar picked himself up off the floor.

"I don't say this very often, but I'm… _impressed_," he said.

The girl sidestepped a large bust of Paracelsus that had suddenly appeared next to her. "You know, if you want to actually get business, you shouldn't really go to such lengths to keep people out of your shop."

"If you'd care to notice, it's open by appointment only—" he indicated a stream of small backwards letters emblazoned on the storefront glass—"and I hope you're not here to try to kill me or pillage my shop, because it's been kind of a long day."

"You're Balthazar Blake?" she asked.

"You were expecting someone taller?"

"Smelling less like a distillery, actually." She gave him a sizing-up glance, although Balthazar couldn't have said what conclusions she'd drawn. Shrugging it off, he strode down the crooked passages between stacks of artifacts to the front desk. If his evening was going to be anything like he expected, he was going to need several strong cups of coffee.

"Your spellwork is decent. Good, even. Who'd you train under?" He rummaged around behind the front counter, looking for a clean-ish mug.

"Beulah Labelle," she said, watching him rummage around, mildly confused.

"That voodoo hack? She's still taking on apprentices?"

She quirked an eyebrow at that, looking ready to argue. "I mean, how's dear old Beulah doing down there in Louisiana?" he corrected himself with only a tiny hint of sarcasm.

"As good as ever," she said. "Listen, I need—"

Balthazar held up a hand. "No requests until I have my faculties back, please. I wasn't exactly expecting to entertain guests tonight." He set the drip system going and they stood for a moment listening to the coffee maker kicking into gear.

When the silence became just awkward enough, Balthazar turned back to his 'guest'. "You never got around to telling me your name."

"Right. Ursula. Rufus. That's… my name." Balthazar decided he enjoyed making her squirm a little too much.

He stuck out his hand to shake hers. Hesitantly, she took it, only to have him latch onto her hand and peer closely at her sorcerer's ring. "Unusual device. Stag beetle, is it? Not a common sigil," he said, examining the yellow stone set in its depths.

She yanked her hand back. "Thanks. It was my father's."

The coffee maker gurgled to a stop behind them. Balthazar poured himself a mug and took a long gulp, ignoring the intense heat. He finished it in one breath, sighed in satisfaction, and plunked the mug onto the counter. "Oh, I'm sorry, would you like some?" he asked.

Ursula looked like she had had enough. She pulled something out of her great leather bag and slammed it on the counter in front of him. It appeared to be a very old, very thick lead box. Even inside that barrier, he could feel something dark and powerful inside.

"It's killed five people already. More are going to die unless you help me," Ursula said in the gravest of tones.

"Now that… is something," Balthazar said. He pulled out an intricate pair of spectacles from an inner pocket, each lens equipped with several magnifying attachments, and broke the seal on the box with a tap of his finger. Inside, sitting so innocuously, was the strange looking doll of rags and twigs. He drew in a sharp breath as he examined it through the spectacles.

"I think," he told the sorceress without looking up, "that it's time for a little surgery."

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><p>AN: Got it done a little later than usual, but it's a pretty long one. Now, I think this story's at a crossroads. I could wrap it up pretty soon and let it stand as a nice little piece of pointless fun. Or, it could turn into something kind of epic. What do you think? Leave me a review or I'll think no one's reading this.


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